STUDY IN HEARTACHE: 3 GIRLS STILL MISSING

Elgin police have used search dogs and an Illinois State Police helicopter to comb neighborhoods, forest preserves and creeks.

They've asked the FBI for assistance. Fliers have blanketed the community, and a 24-hour telephone hot line has taken more than 75 calls.

But still there's no sign of 11-year-old Brittany Martinez, who disappeared from outside her home more than four days ago.

Authorities acknowledge that they are approaching the point of needing what they describe as the "magic call"--that tip out of the blue that will help them determine where Brittany is, alive or dead.

What's happening in Elgin is common in cases of missing people, according to the FBI and criminologists. And police investigating other cases of missing children in the Chicago area also are at the point of pinning their hopes on a long-shot "magic call."

For 15 months, the parents of 13-year-old Rachel Mellon have waited for word about their daughter, who disappeared from Bolingbrook on a freezing January day without her coat or shoes.

And a Woodstock family, desperate to locate their 16-year-old daughter, Wendy Von Huben, has turned to psychics and an appearance on a TV talk show in an effort to find the girl.

In February, Von Huben ran off to Florida with her boyfriend, who later was found beaten to death near Orlando.

Since Brittany Martinez disappeared Thursday evening, Elgin police have conducted an exhaustive search. Now police are returning to every person who has been interviewed and every site that has been searched.

"We still consider everything a possibility," city spokesman Eric Stuckey said Monday. "We don't have anything that tells us to eliminate one area over another. But we become more and more concerned for her well-being as time goes on."

The painstaking investigation is a time-consuming process that can be agonizing to families waiting for news about missing children, according to authorities familiar with such cases.

"It seems like an eternity to the family," said FBI spokesman Bob Long.

Still, he said, in the Elgin girl's case "it hasn't been that long" since Brittany was last seen. She was last spotted at about 6 p.m. Thursday in front of the apartment building where she lives with her mother, stepfather and 4-year-old brother.

"This early in the investigation, there are probably a lot of things that are being redone," Long said. "You retrace your steps, talk to people again."

But if no new leads turn up, officials and relatives will find themselves resorting to hoping for that one phone call.

Yet the unexpected tip is what helps solve many cases at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said Ben Ermini, director of case management.

"Somebody knows where that child is, someone has seen her," Ermini said.

And he said the odds that missing children will be found alive are far from hopeless. Since the center opened in 1990, 83 percent of similar cases were solved, Ermini said. And of those, about 75 percent ended with children being returned to their families, he said.

Brittany's photograph has been posted on the center's Internet page. The center describes her disappearance as an abduction by a non-relative, but it's a characterization that Elgin Police dispute.

"We haven't classified it as an abduction," Stuckey said. "We have not eliminated any reason why she might be missing."

The girl disappeared after she returned home from nearby Wing Park, police said. So far, there is no evidence of an abduction, such as witnesses reporting a struggle or ransom demands delivered to the family.

At the same time, relatives have said adamantly that Brittany had no motivation to run away.

Police have searched for fiber evidence in a car that was driven by Brittany's uncle, Edward Milka, 20, who was the last known person to have seen Brittany. Police also have questioned Milka extensively, Stuckey said.

Milka told police that he pulled up outside the apartment where Brittany lives and that Brittany got into the car, Stuckey said. Milka told officers that the two had a brief conversation before Brittany got out of the car, according to Stuckey.

The next step for Elgin police is to search the east side of Elgin and Poplar Creek, as well as abandoned train tracks that run through the city.

Tuesday, the Illinois State Police Air One helicopter, which is equipped with a heat-seeking infrared camera, will again search along local rivers, Stuckey said.

Searchers will comb the Fox River down to St. Charles, Stuckey said, expanding the search area.

But when searches fail to turn up evidence of missing people, the trail can go cold. That is why William Von Huben recently traveled to New York to discuss his missing daughter on Ricki Lake's syndicated talk show.

"Any exposure we can get just might help us find Wendy," Von Huben said. He also hopes that another TV show, "America's Most Wanted," will pick up the story.

Manhunter, a publication of "America's Most Wanted," already has spotlighted the disappearance of Rachel Mellon, but the publicity has failed to produce new leads in that case.

Bolingbrook police classify Rachel's disappearance as an open missing-person case, and they say they continue to pursue leads. But little progress apparently is being made.

Brittany's relatives strongly support the efforts of Elgin Police.

"These guys are really going at this like a mad dog after a bone," Brittany's stepfather, Scott Howlett, said Monday.

"I know in my heart that she's out there," Howlett said. "I know someplace out there she's going to find a way to get home."